Publication documenting a project installation by German artist Margit Busch, the joint recipient of the 2016 Kunsthalle Wien Prize. Busch's project sheds light on the meeting points of scientific, philosophical, artistic, and practical discourses.
In cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Applied Arts, the Kunsthalle Wien Prize is awarded for outstanding final projects at the two universities of art in Vienna. Addressing possible configurations of art and nature, Margit Busch, corecipient of the Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2016 and graduate of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, created a laboratory-cum-experiment that included mealworms and beetles that consume, and thus recycle, polystyrene plastic. By generating insights into the discipline of “transciency”—devoted to perspectives, research methods, and representations operating through and beyond science—Busch's project sheds light on the meeting points of scientific, philosophical, artistic, and practical discourses. The catalogue contains an essay by art critic Roland Schöny and a conversation between the artist, curator Lucas Gehrmann, and Kunsthalle Wien director Nicolaus Schafhausen, along with installation images and a supplemental “transmap.”
Margit Busch (born 1964 in Germany, lives and works in Vienna) completed a car mechanic apprenticeship in Berlin and studied biology at the University of Bremen. She finished the master program of Art & Science at the University of applied arts in Vienna in 2016, and is the joint recipient of the 2016 Kunsthalle Wien Prize.
